Friday, June 05, 2009

TOP STORY >> How shooting victim survived attack at LR recruiting station

By GARRICK FELDMANLeader executive editor

Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula is limping around his home in Jacksonville with several bullet holes in his body and shrapnel in his lung, his neck and down his back.

A terrorist sprayed him with bullets Monday morning at an Army recruiting station in west Little Rock.

Ezeagwula, 18, survived by playing dead after he was shot. Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway died from a single bullet wound. He will be buried Monday.

Ezeagwula, who graduated from Jacksonville High School last year, pulls up his T-shirt, and you can see his back is all shot up.

A visitor thought Ezeagwula would be in bed while he recovers from the gunshot wounds that nearly killed him. But this tough guy — a former Red Devils football player — doesn’t stay in bed much. He takes some pain pills and a nurse visits him daily to tend to his wounds.

Ezeagwula, who left the hospital on Thursday, talked about his ordeal as his family sat with him, just grateful that he’s alive.

“I’m thanking God he’s at home,” says his aunt, Vicki Jones.

Ezeagwula and Long were standing outside the recruiting station in Ashley Square Shopping Center near Rodney Parham Road when a dark pickup approached them as they took a smoke break.

“We’d been standing outside for five minutes,” Ezeagwula says, as he sits on a couch in the living room.

He and Long had worked there only for a week as temporary recruiters before they were supposed to head out for their next assignment. “He was really a nice guy,” Ezeagwula says.